Thanksgiving Traditional Foods

[cassiesmom]

I'm with Freedom - marshmallows don't go with sweet potatoes for me. My family likes dressing baked in a casserole separately from the turkey.

My Eastern European-American family (Czech on my mom's side, Polish and Ukrainian on my dad's) eats bread dumplings and sauerkraut with our turkey instead of mashed potatoes. Here's a picture of bread dumplings. You boil the dough in a loaf, then slice the dumplings about 3/4" thick, then top them with brown gravy. They're different from potato dumplings.

[Grace]

I loved Thanksgiving growing up in Rhode Island. Probably because I was too young to be responsible for the cooking

We always started off going to Church. Then it was off to a high school football game - they are still playing those games on Thanksgiving

Next to my aunt's house for dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, turnip, cranberry sauces, gravy, stuffing, corn, rolls - and several kinds of pie for dessert. Think of the carb grams we consumed

Nowadays we do turkey, potatoes, peas, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and I have a turnip casserole recipe that is really good. Just pumpkin pie for dessert.

[krazyaboutkatz]

My mom has always slow cooked the turkey overnight and she makes the stuffing and puts it inside of the turkey. She's always done this before Thanksgiving so we just heat it up the day of Thanksgiving and there's a lot less work that way.

We have Turkey,home made gravy, bread stuffing, yams, green beans, cranberry relish, rolls (sometimes with yummy brown sugar inside of them). Since we have stuffing we usually don't also have mashed potatoes but we did when we'd go to my grandparents house. We usually have pumpkin, apple or cranberry apple pie for dessert. Sometimes my mom also makes vinegar pie with any left over pie crust. It sounds nasty but it has cinnamon and sugar on it to cut the vinegar. My mom also made some cranberry loaf this year and I can't wait because it's one of my favorites. I think that's about it.

On New Year's Day we usually have pork and sauerkraut with home made mashed potatoes. I'm of German descent on both sides.

[luvofallhorses]

We have

Turkey
Stuffing, we usually cook stuffing inside of the turkey and then make another one not with the turkey
Cranberry sauce, whole berry and jellied. My mom is also making a cranberry relish like you described Karen.
Dinner rolls have to have those!
A veggie tray consisting of celery with pimento spread, carrots, cucumbers, black olives, etc.
Sweet potato casserole
Mashed Potatos
Green Bean Casserole (I am not sure if this is happening we'll see!)

I am sure I'm forgetting a few things!

For dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Peach Jell-o salad which will probably be served with dinner.
Homemade Fudge

We also have a tray of some lunchmeat, cheese, crackers, chips and dip while the turkey is still cooking in the afternoon.

[pomtzu]

Wow Grace - did you ever bring back the memories.

Yup - growing up in RI - Thanksgiving was quite an adventure. It started out with the Warwick/Cranston H.S. football game (yup - Grace and I went to the same game and h.s.), then it was an afternoon of eating yourself silly. Sometimes Dad cooked, other times we went to my aunt's place. Being Italian, the dinner at Aunt Milly's was huge. Started with soup and antipasto salad, Italian bread, then the meatballs and spaghetti, then on to the turkey and all that traditionally goes with it. I always skipped most of the Italian because I wanted to have room for all that turkey! If you were still able to move after all of that, then on to the pies and spumoni and coffee. Of course the adults had wine with dinner, and even the kids were allowed if they wanted it. When we stayed home, Dad didn't cook all of that - none of the Italian food first - just the traditional turkey dinner.

Now that those days are long gone, I do the cooking. Usually have a cheese and cracker tray to have something to munch on while everything is cooking. Turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes (no marshmallows!), corn, peas, cranberry sauce, sparkling cider, pies - pumpkin and apple and sometimes mincemeat (I'm the only one that likes MM), pumpkin bread.

My 20 lb bird is defrosting in the fridge - can't wait to get it in the oven and have that wonderful smell of the roasting bird, fill the house.

[Grace]

Wow Grace - did you ever bring back the memories.

Yup - growing up in RI - Thanksgiving was quite an adventure. It started out with the Warwick/Cranston H.S. football game (yup - Grace and I went to the same game and h.s.)

What I didn't mention - my cousins went to Cranston H.S., so Thanksgiving dinner at their house was always a post-game celebration for some of us

[momcat]

Growing up, Thanksgiving was always our big family holiday at my uncle's farm upstate New York. Dinner was what my uncle grew on the farm over the summer, the only thing they bought was the turkey and that was from the local poultry farmer. Dinner was the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, various veggies, creamed onions, gravy to die for and our choice of pie - warm with ice cream. (My aunt made the ice cream). Three generations sat down for dinner, the table went from the dining room, through the hall and into the family room.

Before dinner my cousins and I always had a soccer game in the front yard. One year we totally shocked our parents by coming to dinner dressed up, my cousins in suits and me in my Sunday best. We didn't do that very often.

Those were the days.....

[pomtzu]

What I didn't mention - my cousins went to Cranston H.S., so Thanksgiving dinner at their house was always a post-game celebration for some of us

How sweet it was - but only if it was a Warwick win. Hope you all had a friendly rivalry, otherwise it wouldn't have been a pleasant occasion....